For anyone who wants to hear about them for the first time (or relive favorites), The Direct has a breakdown of the many badass moments of Predator: Badlands.
The Predator franchise has shone brightly ever since its masterful first outing in 1987's Predator, but its future has never been brighter since Dan Trachtenberg took the reins with 2022's Prey, followed by the animated feature Predator: Killer of Killers.
2025's Predator: Badlands is the franchise's first entry following a Yautja protagonist, making for one of the most unique entries in the franchise thus far.
Predator: Badlands Spoilers Breakdown
Predator: Badlands Teaches Us Yautja Clan Dynamics
Predator: Badlands begins with badass combat between two Predators. The first, Kwei, is the larger of the two, while the smaller (often fighting on the back foot) is Dek. It's intense, but clearly non-fatal: the pair are brothers.
Dek is the runt of his family, and is consequently maligned by his father, clan patriarch Njohrr. Dek is preparing for battle with a formidable creature, with Kwei's training assistance, to earn respect in Njohrr's eyes. He sets his target as the planet Gemma, full of deadly beasts including the unkillable creature called The Kalisk.
When Njohrr lands, he's angry at Kwei for assisting Dek and believes they should have simply 'culled' him. Kwei disagrees, wanting Dek to have a chance to earn his stripes with a great kill, but Njohrr orders Kwei to kill Dek. Kwei appears as though he will, but instead frees Dek, forces him onto his spaceship, and turns to fight Njohrr. Njohrr kills Kwei just as the ship leaves for Gemma, and Dek is furious.
Dek's spaceship flies to Gemma, and hits a lot of rocks orbiting the planet. He manages to survive in a small escape seat, crashing to the forest below. He's immediately attacked by predatory vines before narrowly escaping, though the vines take a number of his weapons.
The Yautja Dek Meets A Weyland-Yutani Synth, Thia
Dek makes his way to a field full of plants that shoot paralyzing needles. He had difficulties navigating it, when he hears a voice above him. It's Thia, a damaged Weyland-Yutani synth trapped on a cliffside. She offers Dek help navigating the field if he can throw her a weapon to free herself.
Dek's struggles in the field catch the attention of a flying creature, who begins bombarding Dek with boulders. Thia warns him that it's trying to trigger the plants, paralyzing Dek for easy prey. He struggles with the plants and throws her a weapon, just as a plant paralyzes him. This saves him, and uses local flora to fix his paralysis.
Thia and Dek strike a deal: she'll help him get to the Kalisk if he brings her along to find her legs, lost in conflict with said creature. Begrudgingly, he accepts her help as a 'tool' to use in his pursuit (unwilling to otherwise accept help from anyone). Elsewhere, Thia's damaged sister Tessa has been repaired by Weyland-Yutani, who tasks her with collecting the Kalisk at all costs.
As they progress towards the Kalisk, the pair find themselves trapped by a field of razor grass, that Dek has difficulty navigating without being cut. What's worse is that a massive, aggressive beast with tough, bony facial armor is navigating the field, making it additionally difficult to pass.
Dek is able to kill the large, armored creature in the forest, and en route he runs into a smaller, non-threatening creature (who Thia eventually names Bud) that assists Dek from being eaten by a large beast in the trees. The small creature follows Dek and Thia, marking Dek with spit in a gesture Thia interprets as accepting Dek as family of sorts. Dek nonetheless moves on without Bud, with only Thia in tow.
Dek Finds The Kalisk, But Weyland-Yutani Captures Both
A long trek later and the pair eventually make it back to the lair of the Kalisk. They finds Thia's legs, which she begins to reattach with Weyland-Yutani tech. Clandestinely, she contacts Weyland-Yutani.
The Kalisk emerges. It's a massive beast, but Dek takes it on boldly. He comes to realize what 'unkillable' means: any damage done to the beast is almost instantly healed.
They fight until he manages to cut its head off, but fibers from its neck reach out and reattach its head. It's looking grim (and the fight interrupts Thia's leg-reattachment), until the Kalisk smells Bud's scent on the defeated Yautja.
The Weyland-Yutani team arrives, led by Tessa, and captures both the Kalisk and a very angry Dek. Thia attempts to convince Tessa, a synth she considers a sister, to spare Dek. Tessa agrees that Dek shouldn't be studied by the company, but he is tortured nonetheless.
In the conversation, Thia comes to realize that Tessa answers to Weyland-Yutani above all else, and considers Thia defective and expendible (just like Dek's clan thought of him). After Tessa leaves, she instructs an underling to torture Dek until he explains his weaponry (that Tessa captured from his crashed ship).
Dek Escapes, Builds Organic Armor, and Prepares To Fight
With Thia 'translating' Dek's language for his torturers, they trick the underling into setting off an explosive Yautja toy, allowing Dek to escape capture.
Dek encounters Bud, and realizes the Kalisk is Bud's mother. He decides to take the fight to the Weyland-Yutani team, but is without his weapons, so Dek returns to the various locations where he encountered and killed various deadly species.
Dek makes an organic armor out of the planet's creatures, from tough hides to parasis plants, makes bombs from explosive caterpillers, and coaxes a projectile-shooting slug into serving as a makeshift weapon on his shoulder.
Dek takes the fight to Weyland-Yutani, managing to destroy dozens of their synth security team until Tessa emerges with a massive cargo loader (in a nod to the finale of Aliens). While Dek fights the evil synth, Thia escapes custody and, with Bud (and her separated legs), she releases the Kalisk.
With the Kalisk, the allies can take down the large power loader, and the Kalisk swallows Tessa whole. After a happy moment, Tessa activates a stolen cryo-bomb from within the Kalisk, managing to kill it.
Dek, Thia, and Bud manage to kill Tessa, and Bud gets a bit of revenge by ripping Tessa's head off. Given that Tessa killed the planet's apex predator, the Kalisk, Dek takes her head as the planet's true apex predator.
Predator: Badlands' Ending Explained
With head in hand, it's time to confront his Dek's father on his home planet, Yautja Prime. Dek confronts his father and presents the synth's skull, explaining that Tessa killed the Kalisk, ergo her skull is a worthy trophy.
Dek is still denied appropriate honors by Njhorr, who orders his accompanying Yautja to attack him. Dek easily dispatches both, and defeats his father in combat, who relents and gives Dek an offer to rejoin the clan as its honored chief.
Dek rejects the offer to the disdain of the surrounding Predators, and Bud, now considerably grown, bites Njhorr's head off. As Dek stands before the rest of the surrounding clan, he brustles at an incoming ship... that of his mother.
It's a stunner of a sequel tease, with Dek and his small but mighty found-family clan presumably against the entirety of the clan that rejected him.
Predator: Badlands is playing in theaters worldwide.
